Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/146

132 greetings we chided ourselves for that American characteristic which associates a smiling face with an idle body.

Pogni was an excellent example of sweet temper; for we had made a good bargain with him, and though he declared himself ruined and his horses reduced to starvation, he accepted his defeat with the grace of a vanquished monarch, and, with a courtesy that should be royal, became our host for the hour. He listened with strained attention to our mental wanderings, keen for the pause for breath, when he would leap in with a staccato jab of the index-finger towards some ruined monastery, give us its history, and end with a negative waggling of the same digit and a melancholy "no more." Habitations were his passion, and the strong moment of the drive was the first glimpse of the village towers. Pogni dramatized it by an outward flinging of the arms, a sudden checking of the horses,

and a triumphant "Ecco!" What we saw on the highest hill in the distance was a walled citadel, mainly composed of factories with a variety of chimneys, and all hands on a strike. No smoke was blackening the sky, and there was an appearance of desertion that every busy Italian hill town possesses when one is more than a mile beyond the walls. Pogni's satisfaction was so tremendous that one would have thought he had built the towers himself. At every turn of the road which brought us a different view, he would glance over his shoulder with uplifted eyebrows, holding the pose until we flung him an epithet of delight and appreciation. For a couple with a limited vocabulary, this was an exhausting business, and we were relieved to pass within the walls, when he assumed a severe air, and cracked his whip with much hauteur.

Our hotel was in the piazza over a tunnelled stable and a closed shop displaying the English sign, "Etrurians Antiquity." The landlord gave us a choice of two large rooms, and for a long time we agonized over the decision. Both had their attractions. The first possessed a fireplace, a real one, such as we had never seen when the weather was cold, but the second had two bunches of waxflowers on the dresser, quite remarkable in coloring and construction, and that our evenings might be devoted to the study of this unusual flora, we chose the bouquets. It was not the decision that our guardian angels would have made, and they behaved very badly about it, later on, by losing us every time we wandered over our own door-sill, and bringing us up, after weary marches through futile corridors, to the room of the fireplace. There we would have to wait until some one of the household would discover